American Disabilities Act Training Guide for Hiring Managers

This report is a model of a policy and training guide for hiring managers. It provides a detailed and elaborate human resource processes and techniques of employing workers to ensure that federal labor, local labor and state labor statutes are adhered to. In this report, Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) will be explored, major categories of disabilities covered under ADA, the concept of reasonable accommodation and how it applies to Elora Jean Company. Further, a guideline will be provided to hiring managers on what they may ask or may not ask from applicants, also, a draft of the policy to guide the hiring mangers and a training guide that is self-paced for hiring managers to use in working with their staff will be covered.

Elora Jean and Co. is a production company that is growing rapidly due to demand of its products. Due to high demand of its products, the company has hired many employees to assist in production, unfortunately, the company lacks experienced human resource department. Consequently, the lack of experienced human resource administration has caused a number of employee grievances due to workforce under- management. This problem will be curbed by providing a guideline to the hiring managers on how they should apply human resource policies especially focusing on EEO staffing laws, anti-discriminatory hiring practices, immigration bills, foreign workers provisions, and affirmative action regulations (John, 2009).

Gold (2001) suggests that Proper human resource administration practice must put into consideration the American with Disabilities Act when hiring people. ADA provides individuals with disabilities civil rights protection. The act guarantees equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities in Employment, Transportation, and Public accommodation, State and Local Government Services and Telecommunications. According to Gold (2001), American with Disabilities Act under employment protection provides that:

Employers with more than 15 employees may not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities.

The employers must reasonably accommodate the disability of qualified employees unless unavoidable hardship would result.

Applicants or employees who pose a danger to other individuals at the workplace should be rejected by the employers

Employers may not discriminate against a qualified applicant or employee on the basis of disability.

Employees or applicants who have been discriminated against due to disability may file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies to the cases may be back pay and court orders to stop discrimination.

For Elora Jean and Co. to avoid any further complaints or court cases over employment of individuals with disabilities, the hiring managers must comply with the ADA regulations by providing equal employment opportunities to applicants or employees because the company has more than 15 employees.

The hiring managers must also be provided with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission functions and their role in enforcing title I of the ADA employment act. If the company discriminates against disabilities, the applicant/ employees have rights through EEOC to sue the company over discrimination under the federal court (John, 2009).

The remedies for such a case are like those under title VII of theCivil Rights Act 1964. Whereby the court may order the employer to promote the qualified employee, reasonably accommodate their disabilities, pay back wages plus attorney’s fees and pay compensation and punitive damages due to intentional discrimination in employment. Thus, during employment the company must be careful not to fall into this trap of discrimination and risk paying a heavy penalty (Hogler, 2004)

The concept of reasonable accommodation

Reasonable accommodation is core to ADA applications. It refers to any adjustments to a job or work environment to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to apply for a job position or employees to perform essential job functions. Reasonable accommodation also ensures that qualified individuals with disabilities get the same job privileges as those without disabilities (Gold, 2001). Elora Jean says hiring managers should consider this concept as the guiding principle when preparing job advertisements and promotions. After employment, the qualified but disabled individual may be asked if he/she may need any accommodation to be able to carry out the job essential smoothly. The employer has no obligations of putting in place “reasonable accommodation” if the accommodation will lead to “undue hardship” (Gold, 2001).

What or what may not be asked of the applicants

Hogler (2004) argues that, during hiring, the hiring managers should be careful about the questions they ask the applicants to avoid infringing pain or interfering with the applicants personal life. For instance, the hiring manairgers must not ask the applicants questions related to the disability, rather, they should concentrate on abilities. The hiring managers should focus on asking questions that relate to whether the relative of the applicant is already an employee in the company, whether the employee has legal rights to work in the USA or any other part of the world, if the applicant is over 18 years of age, professional schooling, training received membership in any trade union or professional associations and any convictions if job related. The managers should avoid as much as possible to ask the job applicants questions like age, unless there is a big concern about child labor violations under Fair Labor standards act. Again, they should avoid Arrest record, disability, marital status and union affiliation questions during interviews and job descriptions (Hogler, 2004).

A draft policy that will guide hiring managers

The hiring managers should use this draft when hiring employees to ensure that they are within local labor, federal labor and state labor statutes.

Merit based recruitment: Hiring managers must state that the recruitment is merit based.

Commitment from management: The process should demonstrate the commitment to make recruitment fair and free.

Ethics statement: Ethics guiding the recruitment process should be stated.

Communication: All applicants should be notified of the job requirements accordingly.

Expectations: Applicants should be informed of the expected results.

Pre-recruitment activities: All applicants must pass through pre-recruitment activities including interviews.

Selection process: The selection will be based on knowledge, skills and/ abilities capabilities (KSAs)

Employment/ re-employment activities: The most qualified applicants regardless of their physical status are selected as suitable for employment.

Making the final selection/recommendation process: the most qualified employees should be selected after a rigorous exercise.

Approval process: Employees are approved by the supervisors and the human resources.

The applicants must be passed through this process until the most qualified candidates are selected for the job. Any appeals from non selected individuals should be filed by equality employment opportunities commission.

The fact that the company deals with production, employees working in production department should be protected from hazards that may arise from the job. The hiring managers and the operations personnel should lay in place protective equipment, access to medical and exposure records and hazard communication. By John Jude Moran (2009), The occupational safety and health act (OSH act) should be applied to all production employees to ensure that they are safe and protected from the risks associated with their job duties and responsibilities. The company drug free workplace policy must be aligned with OSHA standards and regulations (John Jude Moran 2009).

Elora Jean company has a production facility in Malaysia, thus human resource administration must incorporate international HR policies and laws to consider both U.S. Employees and non- U.S. employees working abroad. For instance, The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is to regulate the minimum wage, certain work conditions and overtime for employees who work in the US and outside the US. However, this act does not cover non-US country based employees.

Labor Management Relations Act should be used to protect the Malaysian employees and the company so that according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), employees covered by the act are only those working in the US and its territories. Family Medical Leave Act requires that the employer provide employees with unpaid leave if that satisfy certain conditions. This statute has no extraterritorial applications. The company has a reason for making certain decisions over this act to avoid employment legal issues (Flanagan, Robert 2006).

References

Flanagan, R., J. (2006). Globalization and Labor Conditions: Working Conditions and WorkerRights in a Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed.

Gold, M., E. (2001). An Introduction to the Law of Employment Discrimination. Ithaca,NY: ILRPress/Cornell University Press, 2nd ed